1. Field of the Description
This description is generally directed toward more effectively capturing solar energy, and, more particularly, to a waveguide, and to solar assemblies with such waveguides, that is adapted for effectively capturing sunlight or solar energy without the need for solar tracking.
2. Relevant Background
Solar energy is captured using a range of technologies including solar photovoltaics (PV), solar heating, and solar thermal electricity. Active solar technologies often use PV panels or solar thermal collectors to harness the Sun's energy. There is a growing demand for increased development of solar technologies such as improved solar power systems to provide inexhaustible and clean energy to replace fossil fuels that may be depleted and whose use may harm the environment. For example, there has been a growing trend to use solar power, which is the conversion of sunlight into electricity using photovoltaics, to provide an increasing percentage of a nation's electrical power needs. To this end, solar panel or PV material may be utilized and is formed of numerous PV cells, with each PV cell being a device that converts light into electric current using the photoelectric effect.
One issue hindering more widespread adoption of solar energy technologies is cost, e.g., the cost of producing a unit of electricity with solar power compared with the cost of producing the same amount of electricity with other power sources. While solar costs have continued to fall in recent years, the costs associated with capturing solar energy are still significantly higher than other sources of energy especially when it is understood that solar energy can be used to produce electricity (or provide heat in thermal systems) during the daytime and only have a primetime power generation of about four hours. The capital cost is believed to be out of synchronization with the electricity production by many in the energy industry and society in general considering levelized costs of coal, natural gas, and other electricity sources such as nuclear power. Hence, it is likely that a breakthrough is needed in how solar energy is captured to move its use, such as to generate electricity, in parity, with regard to costs and other issues, with other forms of presently available energy.
With regard to conversion of solar energy into electricity, one of the primary costs is the PV cells or PV material (sometimes labeled the PV conductor or absorber). PV cells are expensive in part due to the manufacturing complexities and also due to the cost of materials required for the thin films or layers of such PV cells such as cadmium telluride, mono-crystalline silicon, multi-crystalline silicon, copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS), and the like. The amount of PV material can be reduced to lower costs of a solar power system, but this would require a significant increase in efficiency as typical PV cells have an efficiency of well below twenty percent (e.g., either have to increase conversion efficiency or direct more sunlight onto each PV cell).
In some applications, a solar power system may be configured to concentrate the solar energy or sunlight so as to try to reduce the amount of PV material used in the system. However, an ongoing challenge in such concentrator-based systems is the need for focusing and the need to track the Sun as it moves across the sky and has its path change with seasons, and, due to these challenges, these systems have not been widely adopted or reduced the overall cost of capturing solar energy.
There remains a need for technology that is effective in reducing the costs associated with capturing solar energy for conversion into electricity or heat. Preferably such a technology would be adapted to facilitate the use of reduced amounts of PV material used in a solar power system while still generating the same or more electricity.